Most of the popular browsers these days are based on one of the two open source rendering engines - khtml/WebKit and Gecko. The most popular browser, however, is based on proprietary technology: Internet Explorer. Even though IE made some progress during the past few years, it's no secret that it took Microsoft far too long to counter the success of Mozilla's Firefox. Currently, Microsoft is working (and thus, spending money) on Internet Explorer 8, and this prompted an audience member during a keynote by Steve Ballmer to ask an interesting question: is it worth spending money on IE, with so many open source engines readily available? Ballmer's reply may surprise you.

Yes, I agree. I was just saying; I can't help but think that the "well, we've taken this approach before - we can do it again" has a chance of coming up more than once as Microsoft finds themselves in situations where they are "lagging behind".

Personally, I think the more they do this and the more fingers pointed at them acknowledging what they are doing, that good will come - not any significant degree, but enough to make one smile.